Dear Pistachio Lover,

This post is about India, but mostly about some pistachios in India.

India is fascinating, intense, and dripping with humanity and spirituality. A country filled with so many different cultures, ideas, beliefs, languages living together and somehow moving forward in a dance that would take a lifetime to fully grasp.

Also, naans.

India is one of those places that are impossible to describe in a single post and I will spare you the clichés of smells and sounds and colors to focus more on some pistachios I stumbled upon in Jodhpur –  the “blue” city in the northern state of Rajastan on the way to Mumbai.

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These pistachios were picked up from a store called 15 AD Bakery, it seems to be a bakery that has a few spots in Jodhpur. The one in Jodhpur was a smaller one but set-up nicely with some nice lighting and pleasant service. ( They gave me change for a huge bill which in India can be tricky, especially from tuk tuk drivers … ).  The shop also had a good paneer pie and a sausage roll, both very good and pleasantly spicy.

Presentation and Packaging

The pistachios come in a can. A can with no pull tab. That’s the first thing we noticed. After trying to open it with a can opener, we realized it actually pops open ! Hopefully this will help preserve the freshness of nuts inside.  Other than that, it’s actually quite tastefully packaged with a simple and classy green on green background and good use of fonts. There are windows and geometric patterns reminiscent of India and the logo, description, and weight all aligned vertically.

Looking at the back of the can, we can see the ingredients, manufacturer information (15 A.D. Bakery), as well as the url of the designer which is not something we see in pistachio packages in general: www.designdimensions.in.

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Visual Aspect and smell

Nice yellow beige shells and once opened with a medium crack (not too loud, not too mute), we can find a nice reddish hue covering some bright greenness. The reddish hue is reminiscent of some other pistachios we’ve reviewed in the middle east and eastern europe. The smell is subtle but robust and the can produced a nice pop when opening.

Taste

Surprisingly good ! Airport pistachios are usually not that great especially in Asia as you can see in Vietnam or Singapore.  These however,  had a good crunch, a nice floral and sweet after taste (on many of the pistachios)… a good saltiness if you don’t eat too many in a row, and a good consistency.

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Conclusions

These were fresh solid and tasty pistachios found in the wonderful country of India.

Despite the fact that they traveled quite a bit in a backpack across the country in humid conditions, these stayed quite tasty and deserve their very respectable score of 4.1/5  Thanks mostly to their taste, packaging, and consistency.  We would suggest though that these be complimented with some tea or even some water to bring out the flavors. Enjoy !